Tashkent to the Fergana Valley: Train or Road
The Kamchik pass, the 19 km tunnel that bypasses it, shared taxi fares and train times for getting from Tashkent into the Fergana Valley.
There is one way in and out of the Fergana Valley from the rest of Uzbekistan, and it goes over a mountain range. The Kamchik pass tops out at around 2,267 metres, the road hairpins its way up and over, and in a hard winter it closes.
That single geographic fact explains why the valley feels different from the rest of the country, and it is also the thing to plan this journey around.
The tunnel changed everything
The train doesn't go over the pass. It goes under the mountains.
The Qamchiq tunnel, 19.2 kilometres long, opened on 22 June 2016 as part of the 169-kilometre Angren–Pap railway line, boring through the Qurama range to link Tashkent directly with the valley. It is the longest railway tunnel in Central Asia, and it was built with Chinese contractors as a flagship national project.
Before it existed, the rail route into the valley had to detour through Tajikistan. Now it doesn't. For a traveller that means a train that runs regardless of what the weather is doing on the pass, which is a meaningful advantage between December and March.
Taking the train
Uzbekistan Railways runs several services a day from Tashkent to Andijan, stopping at Pop, Namangan, Kokand and Margilan on the way. Margilan is the station that serves Fergana city, which catches people out — there is no useful station in Fergana itself.
Journey times run around four to six hours depending on the service and how far into the valley you're going, with a faster modern train running twice daily. Fares are modest; Tashkent to Margilan sits in the region of $12–18 depending on class (last checked: September 2026). Book at eticket.railway.uz.
This is the option we'd take almost every time. It's comfortable, it's predictable, and it removes the pass from the equation entirely. Our rail network guide covers how this line fits with the Afrosiyob services running west.
The road, and the pass
Around 360 kilometres from Tashkent, roughly four to six hours by car depending on your destination in the valley and on conditions at the top.
Shared taxis leave from stands in Tashkent when they fill, and reported fares vary enormously — figures in the range of 150,000 to 200,000 so'm per seat are what current sources quote, though you'll find much lower numbers in older write-ups and much higher ones from drivers sizing up a foreigner. Agree the number before you get in, as with any taxi in Uzbekistan.
What you get for the discomfort is the pass itself, and it is genuinely spectacular: switchbacks, snow on the tops well into spring, and a view back down over the plain that the tunnel obviously doesn't provide. There are tea stops at the summit. If the scenery is the point of your journey rather than the destination, take the road one way and the train back.
Two cautions. Winter closures happen, and a shared taxi that sets off anyway in poor conditions is not a car you want to be in. And there are checkpoints on this road; have your passport accessible.
Flying
Domestic flights serve Fergana, Namangan and Andijan from Tashkent. The flight is under an hour.
Whether that beats a four-hour train once you've added airport procedures at both ends is marginal, and the schedules are thinner than the rail timetable. Worth checking if the train is full or if you're tight on days.
Why the valley is walled off at all
Worth a paragraph, because it explains more than the journey.
The Fergana Valley is a bowl roughly 300 kilometres long, ringed by the Tian Shan to the north and the Alay ranges to the south, and drained by the Syr Darya. It is the most fertile and most densely populated part of Central Asia, and the Soviet border-drawing of the 1920s cut it into three, so the valley floor today is shared between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with a tangle of enclaves left over.
That is why the only Uzbek road in crosses a 2,267-metre pass instead of going round: going round means leaving the country. It is also why the valley has its own dialect, its own food, and a craft economy concentrated in a way you don’t see on the plains. You are not travelling to another province. You are travelling to a place that the mountains kept separate for most of its history.
A further external reference worth having before you go: the regional tourism network publishes practical transport information for the valley at ferganavalley-ctn.uz.
Which town to aim for
The valley has four places most visitors care about and they are not equally convenient to arrive at.
- Kokand is the first town after the pass and the closest to Tashkent, which makes it the natural first stop if you're travelling west to east. The palace is the draw.
- Margilan is the rail head for the middle of the valley and the silk town. Arriving here puts you within half an hour of everything.
- Fergana city is the best base for sleeping and eating, half an hour from Margilan.
- Andijan is the far end, and the town to aim at if you're continuing to Kyrgyzstan.
Our three-day Fergana Valley itinerary puts these in a sensible order, and the valley guide covers each town in more detail.
If you're continuing to Kyrgyzstan
The Dostuk crossing near Andijan is the main road border into Osh, and it makes the Fergana Valley a natural link rather than a dead end. Plenty of travellers do Tashkent, the valley, then Osh and the Kyrgyz mountains — see our notes on Uzbek land borders.
That routing has a practical consequence for this journey: if you're crossing, take the train all the way to Andijan rather than stopping at Margilan and doubling back.
The thing worth doing
Go in by road and come out by train.
The pass is one of the best drives in the country and it's wasted on a return leg when you're tired and heading home. The tunnel is a feat of engineering that feels like nothing at all from inside a carriage. Do the spectacular version on the way in, when the valley is still ahead of you, and take the efficient one back.
Featured image: Mirzoulugʻbek (CC0) via Wikimedia Commons.